View report page

MORTALITY IN CHILDHOOD. 53
MORTALITY IN CHILDHOOD.
At Ages under One Year.
The deaths registered in the Borough during the past year included 326 of infants under
one year of age, 57 of those infants being non.residents. The crude. mortality for the year was
at the rate of 117 per 1,000 births registered within the Borough, as compared with 141 for
1911, and an annual average of 126 during the five years 1907.11. The figures for the four
quarters are given below. The contrast between the rates recorded in the third quarters of
1911 and 1912 is striking, the difference being due to the very low mortality in the latter year
from summer diarrhoea.

The nett mortality is calculated quarterly. It is the rate which has been used for many
years past. Last year this rate varied from 80 per 1,000 births (registered within the Borough)
in the third quarter of the year to 138 in the fourth. Last year's rate for the third quarter was
the lowest summer rate on record.
The rates given below-which cover the twenty.two years 1891.1912-are as strictly comparable
as mortality rates can be expected to be. The only source of error in the comparison arises
from the more complete reporting of outlying deaths (in the County) which has been secured of
recent years. Last year's rates were notably lower than those recorded in 1911, except in the
fourth quarter. The 1912 rates were slightly in excess of the quarterly averages for the five
years 1906.10, except in the third quarter. The only unsatisfactory feature of the comparison
between the 1912 rates and those recorded prior to 1906 is the high mortality (138) recorded in
the fourth quarter.

Since 1904 copies of the entries in the local Registers of Births have been received weekly,,
and it has been possible to correct the numbers of births registered in the Borough by the exclusion
of births of children to non.resident parents. Quarterly infantile mortality rates-for convenience
designated "corrected" rates-have been taken out for the Borough and each of the Wards
. By crude mortality is meant the ratio of deaths to births as registered in the Borough in each case, without
any correction for births or deaths of non.residents in the Borough, or of residents in outlying districts.
The nett mortality is obtained by correcting the deaths, but not the births, such corrections being based on
the weekly returns, both those received from the local Registrars and those from Somerset House (confined to
deaths in London and the immediate suburbs thereof).
The corrected mortality is given by the use of the deaths-corrected as in the last case-and of the births of
residents recorded locally.
The fully corrected mortality is the rate based on the numbers of births and deaths of residents of the
Borough, as determined by the use of the "transferred" births and deaths received at the end of the year from
t Somerset House.
The calculation of the four rates is necessary to preserve the continuity of the records.